Clarissa Eden, British Countess and Political Influencer, Dies at 101

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The iconoclastic niece of Winston Churchill, she was married to Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who was at the helm during the Suez crisis.

Clarissa Eden and her husband, Prime Minister Anthony Eden, at 10 Downing Street in 1955. “You were perpetually in evening gowns, tremendous evening clothes — tiaras and God knows what, and long gloves that had to be buttoned up,” Ms Eden said. | Monty Fresco Jr./Topical Press Agency, via Getty Images
LONDON — Clarissa Eden, an elegant and well-connected insider among a British elite that shaped the country’s empire, stewarded its wars and presided over the onset of post-imperial decline, died on Monday at her home in London. She was 101.

Hugo Vickers, her friend and literary executor, confirmed her death.

Long before her marriage to Anthony Eden, a Conservative who became Britain’s prime minister, Lady Eden had built an iconoclastic reputation that set her apart from her cohort of debutantes, traveling across Europe, studying art and philosophy, consorting unwittingly with Soviet agents and decoding secret messages at the Foreign Office in wartime Britain.

She was born into the Churchill family and, in a memoir published in 2007, recalled lunching with Winston Churchill — her Uncle Winston — as he allowed a pet cat to prowl the table to be fed. When she married Lord Eden, then the foreign secretary, Churchill provided for her to celebrate the occasion at 10 Downing Street, the seat of prime ministerial power. » | Alan Cowell | Tuesday, November 16, 2021